Piracy

I propose that we all become pirates. Not pirates per se but we will attack ships on the sea. We could easily cripple the biggest countries by blocking their imports. Most ships travel through the same narrow routes which can easily be blocked. It only takes a small group of people to take over a ship since most crews of ships are unarmed. Small ships can't be detected by radar because they are too low; therefore, the ship is easy to sneak up on. I'm sure we could do something to stop world trade. Rather than take over all the ships which is near impossible, we can take over a few large ships and block the trade routes. Perhaps we can just capture a certain type of vessel(like oil large oil carrying vessels perhaps) and hold them. This will cause a lot of harm to countries like the U.S., perhaps crippling it. This requires a lot more thinking and planning, but if we can gather money and supplies for this(which isn't so much since all we need is some food and guns and small boats) it may be feasible. Of course recruiting people might be a problem. Perhaps we could pay mercenaries. The beauty of this is that the ships can't be attacked because it would destroy the cargo. The ships must be boarded and it's occupants seized. Luckily, preventing boardings can easily be done. If anything we can sink the ships, it accomplishes the same goal. We can even blow up the oil ships and damage nearby ships that might be nearby trying to stop us. I won't bother with any more details since this is very complex thing and i believe i have adequately explained the general idea of this. Maybe perhaps even within ten years we might have the resources and adequately planning to do this.

AttheGates1996

Good planning but seizing an oil cargo ship isn't going to harm the U.S. The U.S. has enough oil to last the nation another 50 or so years, they just continue buying so that one day they'll have it all.

It was strange talking about the U.S. in third person, considering I live there.

AttheGates1996

Iím not 100% on my facts but I was taught that the U.S. has plenty of oil for the time being, or at least enough to last quite a while. This could be bias but itís somewhat easy to believe considering the incredible amount of money America spends on imports. But I donít know shit on economics and what not, I feel stupid for not knowing any of this crap.

According to the EIA, the United States has 21 billion barrels of proved oil reserves as of January 1, 2000. †The U.S. uses about 6.6 billion barrels per year. †That is only enough oil to last the U.S. about three and a half years without importing oil from other countries. †84% of the reserves are concentrated in four states. †Texas has 25%, both onshore, and offshore. †Alaska has 24%, California has 21%, and Louisiana has 14% onshore, and offshore. †Since 1990, U.S. oil reserves have dropped about 20%. †New oil discoveries made in 1999 were made almost entirely in the Gulf of Mexico, and Alaska. (321 million barrels). †All other discoveries were extensions of existing oil fields, or new reservoirs discovered in old fields. (404 million barrels).

US oil production peaked somewhere around the mid-seventies, and there is virtually no feasibility of any additional oil field discoveries within US territory. †The disputed drilling in ANWR would provide a pathetic amount of oil in the long run - a tacit acceptance of the desperation regarding energy's future. We spend an incredible amount of money on imports simply due to demand; our "economy" is nearly 100% lubricated by (cheap) oil and would completely lock up with even minor disruptions in supply.

Reminds me of an interesting passage by William Burroughs, although it's more about the possibility of establishing pirate communes than sinking ships. Either way, it's too late. Nearly all the land is taken now and a fleet backed by a whole nation's firepower is too much for a few renegade ships.

I was just putting an idea out there. I know we couldn't realistically cripple a country, but we could cause chaos and panic. Perhaps with a small force we could usurp power or at least make changes in the government. We can force them to change laws in exchange for us releasing the captured cargo. Even if we fail, hopefully we can inspire others to do the same. Perhaps the chaos and panic might serve as some sort of wake-up call and cause the potential revolutionaries to emerge. Again I'm just putting ideas out there.

I just remembered of something I had read about called pykrete. It's a mixture of sawdust and ice which raises the melting point considerably. During WWII they built prototype ships built entirely of pykrete. The plan was that they were going to build the largest ship ever and build it out of pykrete. It would be near unsinkable since all holes could just be mended by adding water. Pykrete was shown to be about as hard as normal concrete and could support about the same amount of weight i believe. The ship was never built because it was intended as an airplane carrier and the range of airplanes was increasing then and the U.S. had captured land in the pacific so it didn't need carriers. Also the atomic bomb was being developed and no other weapon would be needed to win the war. Perhaps such a ship would not be entirely unfeasible since the main building materials would be water and sawdust. We'd probably have to build our own cooling system and engine though. I believe many of the problems with the idea were already worked out and I believe the original designs are available to civilians. Perhaps we should look into this.

chrstphrbnntt

I was just putting an idea out there. I know we couldn't realistically cripple a country, but we could cause chaos and panic. Perhaps with a small force we could usurp power or at least make changes in the government. We can force them to change laws in exchange for us releasing the captured cargo. Even if we fail, hopefully we can inspire others to do the same. Perhaps the chaos and panic might serve as some sort of wake-up call and cause the potential revolutionaries to emerge. Again I'm just putting ideas out there.

I just remembered of something I had read about called pykrete. It's a mixture of sawdust and ice which raises the melting point considerably. During WWII they built prototype ships built entirely of pykrete. The plan was that they were going to build the largest ship ever and build it out of pykrete. It would be near unsinkable since all holes could just be mended by adding water. Pykrete was shown to be about as hard as normal concrete and could support about the same amount of weight i believe. The ship was never built because it was intended as an airplane carrier and the range of airplanes was increasing then and the U.S. had captured land in the pacific so it didn't need carriers. Also the atomic bomb was being developed and no other weapon would be needed to win the war. Perhaps such a ship would not be entirely unfeasible since the main building materials would be water and sawdust. We'd probably have to build our own cooling system and engine though. I believe many of the problems with the idea were already worked out and I believe the original designs are available to civilians. Perhaps we should look into this.

I'll bite: Tractor trailers are actually more vulnerable. Plus mucking trade that way doesn't require a boarding crew at all. You could even go after a specific favorite retailer etc. Not only could you screw up that but also traffic patterns.